Origin

‘If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it just may be a duck.’ was the comment made by the US union leader Walter Reuther about the alleged communists investigated by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950s. The quack of a duck, recorded from the mid 16th century, is just an imitation of the bird's characteristic sound. The kind of quack who dishonestly claims to have medical skills was originally a quacksalver, a 17th-century word from Dutch quacken ‘to talk foolishly’ and salf the same word as ‘salve’ (Old English) from a Germanic base meaning ‘clarified butter’.

Origin

‘If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it just may be a duck.’ was the comment made by the US union leader Walter Reuther about the alleged communists investigated by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950s. The quack of a duck, recorded from the mid 16th century, is just an imitation of the bird's characteristic sound. The kind of quack who dishonestly claims to have medical skills was originally a quacksalver, a 17th-century word from Dutch quacken ‘to talk foolishly’ and salf the same word as ‘salve’ (Old English) from a Germanic base meaning ‘clarified butter’.

Derivatives

salvable

These groups, I thought, were the dead and dying; the salvable; and the walking or less seriously wounded.

Bolts, screws, pins and nails shall be removed in such a manner as to avoid splitting and breaking of the timbers. Salvable material shall be cleaned, sorted and stored as to size and length for purposes of checking and preparing lists.

All wrecks which are obviously not salvable should be blown up or otherwise destroyed.